A picture's worth 1,000 hateful words
By HEATHER MALLICK
Saturday, November 15, 2003
There can be few things that more eloquently express the male hatred and fear of women than the recent Associated Press photo of Junior Bush signing into law a ban on late-term abortions while surrounded by six grinning middle-aged Talibanic white men in suits. There isn't a woman in sight.
Any all-male or all-female gathering of humans spells trouble. This would be your classic case.
These men are clapping because they have just signed a law bullying the saddest, most frightened women in the United States -- the tiny group of pregnant women who have just seen their past-20-week ultrasound and been told things like, "Ma'am, it doesn't have a head."
Until these men had it their way, most women in these straits would have tried to obtain a late-term abortion, the accurate description of what these men prefer to call a "partial-birth" abortion. The fetus may have any of a number of conditions: spina bifida, lacking a skull, etc. Late-term abortions are performed in Canada, but are, and have always been, very rare.
Now, in the United States, these men say the deformed fetus must be carried to term without considering the mother's health. She may have wanted to do this anyway. The men dwell lovingly on upsetting phrases such as "skull-crushing." But the main point is not the medical technique used for the abortion, it is that she no longer has any say in the matter. Even 12-year-old rape victims who didn't realize they were pregnant would have to go through with it. It rivals female circumcision for cruelty and pointless misery.
It still isn't easy for a Canadian woman to get an abortion, but at least she has a chance, and her health comes first. I feel chewed up with sorrow for American women.
All these men in the photo are applauding, none more enthusiastically than Republican Senator Rick Santorum, a father of six, whose claim to fame is saying that if Americans allowed homosexuality, they would have to allow bigamy, incest, adultery and "anything." By "anything," he means sex with furniture or raccoons. What he wants mandated is missionary-position sex with the lifelong spouse lifting her nightshirt for yearly planting. I don't think men or women want sex like that tonight. Given the choice, I'd rather have my wisdom teeth reinserted. I kept them just in case.
Let's meet the guys in the photo. From left, we see House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Likes: semi-automatic weapons, death penalty. Dislikes: patients' bill of rights); Senator Orrin Hatch (Likes: death penalty, writing 300 songs about love. Dislikes: flag-burning, gays who complain of being fired for gaiety); Representative James Sensenbrenner (Likes: faster death penalties, faster gun purchasing. Dislikes: alternative fuels); Rick Santorum (we've already met); Representative James Oberstar (Likes: death penalty, old people paying for own medication. Dislikes: World Trade Organization, smut); Senator Mike DeWine (Likes: death penalty, big school classes. Dislikes: trigger locks on guns).
Weird how these men are pro-life right up to the point of birth, when they suddenly become rigidly pro-death.
The war between men and women used to be distant from me, fought in faraway bars, foreign beds. But it's heating up and it's getting closer. I see Afghan leaders present themselves and there isn't a woman among them. There's nothing worse than men in groups: armies, all-male editorial boards, all-male tables of content in magazines, all-male management, all-male "greatest" lists. Where are the women? Worse, no one seems to notice, or wonder if the world would be a less violent, more interesting place (for we are without doubt the more interesting sex) if women had a say in running it.
The worst a female soccer team will do is get grass stains on their uniforms and drive their dry cleaner to drink. The worst a male soccer team will do is gang-rape. It happens in Britain -- part of the current wave of violence by football players -- with many theories being floated to explain it, one being that this is a way for men to have semi-sex with each other.
The exclusion of women from the circles of power that rule our lives is a damnable, dangerous thing. For me, the most painful case has always been that of Rosalind Franklin. James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, right, and got their Nobel, place in history etc. Except they couldn't have done it without the crucial work of Ms. Franklin, a researcher who was driven from her job.
Mr. Watson and Mr. Crick basically dismissed the brilliant Ms. Franklin as a badly dressed, aggressive cow. Oh, and she was Jewish, and I shiver to think how that went over. She died young, of ovarian cancer.
The structure of DNA was discovered by Ms. Franklin, Mr. Watson and Mr. Crick. Please use the three names. Even Cambridge is twisted with guilt over this now.
Ah, the freezing-out of women. Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own, about small-scale personal female independence. But like it or not, power is wielded by groups, even though the male reputation for working well in groups is absurdly inflated. If only women could get into those groups without fear or favour. Vote for them, hire them, promote them, treat them like equals. Then maybe the most powerful men in the world's most powerful nation wouldn't stand around a-clappin' and a-grinnin' at having kicked a bunch of helpless women in the belly.
Let us in.
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